Ten man Sydney side beaten by the Reds

A controversial second half send-off has cruelled Sydney FC’s chances in its Hyundai A-League clash with Adelaide United, with John Kosmina’s men going down 2-nil tonight at Hindmarsh Stadium.

A controversial second half send-off has cruelled Sydney FC-s chances in its Hyundai A-League clash with Adelaide United, with John Kosmina-s men going down 2-nil tonight at Hindmarsh Stadium.

Sydney was a goal down 14 minutes into the second period when Terry McFlynn was shown a straight red card by referee Ben Williams as he was about to be replaced, after suffering a knee injury in a crude challenge from Reds- defender, Scott Jamieson.

FC fought-on valiantly for the final third of the match with only 10 men but now finds itself with plenty of work to do in the second half of the season.

“We came here tonight to get 3 points and obviously we-re very disappointed because we-ve come away with nothing,” said Sydney captain, Steve Corica after the game. “We haven-t got many points in the last 5 or 6 games so we-ve got to work hard and get a win up.”

Having watched Brendan Gan steer their youth team to a seventh-straight National Youth League victory in the curtain-raiser, the Sky Blues started strongly against the Reds and dominated play during the first quarter of the contest.

Field position and possession didn-t translate into chances on goal, however, and it seemed destined to be a scoreless first period with neither keeper truly tested in the opening 45.

But, with the half-time whistle only seconds away in injury time, Rob Middleby was ruled to have fouled United midfielder, Alemao as he raided down the right.

Kristian Sarkies sent the ball curling into the box from the free kick, and Sasa Ognenovski hammered home the header, after knocking John Aloisi to ground on the far post.

Leading 1-nil at the break Adelaide almost doubled its advantage immediately after the restart when Sydney was caught off-guard, and FC custodian, Ivan Necevski was again called into the action when Reds- captain, Travis Dodd fired off a fierce close-range shot after 50 minutes.

Nine minutes later McFlynn was dismissed while he received treatment on the field for suspected knee ligament damage and the Sky Blues- task became all the tougher.

Despite being a man down, the visitors looked dangerous and continued to probe United-s defences, but with 13 minutes remaining Dodd delivered the killer blow when he pounced on an attempted clearance from Beau Busch and the ball rebounded into the back of the net, sealing Sydney-s fate.

Necevski denied Dodd a double late in the game when his reflexes repelled a close range blast that he had no right to save, but there would be no miracle come back for the Sky Blues.

Despite the 2-nil defeat, coach John Kosmina still found positives in the performance.

“The result doesn-t look good but the football we played was more than adequate from my point of view,” he said. “We-ve got to start playing some consistent football but that-s the best we-ve played for quite a few weeks, the best 90 minutes we-ve put together for quite a few weeks, so I-m happy with that, we start to build from there.”

The rebuilding effort will begin next week when FC hosts the Queensland Roar in round 13 of the Hyundai A-League on Friday night at the Sydney Football Stadium.